All right, if you have your Bibles, then let's open the Word of God together. We are returning once again here to the book of James, chapter 1, as we make our slow progress through this book to this point. I want to once again go back to the first verse. Our thoughts today are going to come from verses 9 through 11. But the setting, as always, the context is so very important. And hopefully, if nothing else, a reminder of what has come before, even though it is just a mere eight verses, it all is still very important as a launching point and a reminder of where we are, what James is talking about, and what he's told us to this point about himself and about trials about wisdom, and today about what it is that we're to boast in. And if we have a title today, you want to mark that in your notes, it's boasting in lowliness. Boasting in lowliness. But James chapter one, verse one, James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the 12 tribes in the dispersion, greetings. Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness, and let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting. For the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind, for that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord. He is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways. Let the lowly brother boast in his exultation, and the rich in his humiliation, because like a flower of the grass he will pass away. For the sun rises with its scorching heat and withers the grass, its flower falls and its beauty perishes. So also will the rich man fade away in the midst of his pursuits. As we said, our thought today coming from those last three verses that we read, verses 9 through 11, and our thought about what James tells us to boast in as followers of Christ. That's who he's speaking to. Specifically, it seems he's speaking to Jewish Christians, those in the dispersion. And we have said at the beginning or in the early sermons on this book that James was well-known among the people, a devout Jew, one zealous of his heritage as a Jew. And he's told us many different things already in these first eight verses. And now he begins and tells us what it is that we are to boast in. And this section on what we are to be boasting of or proud of, we might say, or that that we might take hope in, follows this teaching on how one is to find wisdom. And we found out that asking God for wisdom will result in the receiving of that wisdom. But I think it's interesting that this passage follows right on the heels of that teaching when James says, if you lack wisdom, ask God, because he's going to go into some things and already has to. Some things that are hard for us to grasp, I think, fully. Certainly in our human flesh, it's difficult for us to find our way to being in congruence with what James is saying. But again, this section as it follows that section on finding wisdom, I think it demonstrates that the wisdom that we are talking about, that James is talking about, is heavenly wisdom, spiritual wisdom. There is wisdom in the world or wisdom of the world to be wise about the ways of the world. But this wisdom that James is talking about, I believe, is a wisdom that is from God. This is the wisdom you'll get from him, not from the evening news, not from merely a book that you might read outside of scripture. This is wisdom, James is talking about, that is from heaven. And it is not in congruence with the wisdom of the world. And we need to understand that, I think, first of all. And if there's one thing I hope to be able to express to you today, it is the need to be a people wise when it comes to spiritual things, to see the world through spiritual eyes, to be wise about the world and our own lives with a spiritual and a heavenly wisdom, not a wisdom from the world, a wisdom that is at odds, in fact, with the wisdom of God and His Word. It doesn't take you long to read the Bible and read what man says today, and you'll find many things at odds. And James is telling us and he is teaching us what it is that we are to boast of in our life, and it is very different from what the world tells us to boast of. Earthly wisdom and spiritual wisdom, they're like oil and water. Oil and water do not mix, as you know. The oil will rise to the top because it's not as dense or as heavy as water is, and it will always separate. No matter what you try to do, the two things cannot dwell together. And this is the difference between earthly wisdom and spiritual wisdom. They're not the same thing. Not at all. I think we often spend a lot of time trying to increase our earthly wisdom, and I don't know that there's anything necessarily wrong with that, but it should be far second on the list to becoming people of spiritual wisdom. And if you are spiritually wise today, I think you're going to find yourself looking at the world very differently than the way the world does. You're going to think about your jobs differently. You're going to we're going to think about our lives very differently from that, that the world's wisdom would encourage us to think about them. One of the greatest struggles, I think, at least it is for me, one of the greatest struggles that we have in life is learning to distinguish between what is true spiritual wisdom and what is merely wisdom of the world. I would ask you today to examine your own heart. God wants us, I think, to examine our hearts together, whether or not we boast in what James and thus God, as he inspired James to write, tells us to boast in. Let's look at this passage and see if we can improve on our heavenly, our spiritual wisdom today. That's what I hope to accomplish. It's what I hope to encourage you with this morning. By the time that we leave here today, I hope that you and I can see something of the difference between these two things, spiritual wisdom and worldly wisdom, and in particular, it's its application to what we boast in, what we are confident about, what we want and what we desire in life. And since worldly wisdom and spiritual wisdom don't mix. I hope at a minimum we can begin to determine which we are following in our life, which which wisdom, the wisdom of the world or God's wisdom from his scripture, from his Holy Spirit. Which wisdom is guiding your life and mine? It begins, and he tells us. To let the lowly brother boast in his exaltation. And when we read that, we're reminded or or I think about the fact that it seems to be that for most who follow Christ, I will not say all, but for many, at least, if not most. who follow Christ in the world, their position in this world is one of lowliness and humbleness. Rarely is the follower of Christ the man or the woman that the world exalts and puts on a pedestal. Rarely, if ever, does that happen. Most of the time, it seems that to be a follower of Christ is to be looked upon as a mean, humble, lowly thing. in the world, and in truth, that is what we are to be. The world looks favorably on few who are seemingly truly followers of Christ. And again, I would not say it's impossible for the true believer to advance somewhat in the world. But I do say that I believe it to be the rare exception and not the rule. We just have to look at Scripture. and history and even our own lives to see the truth of this. But listen specifically to the word of God in Hebrews chapter 11, verse 36 through 38 tells us of people who were living their lives by faith, living their lives according to spiritual wisdom and not worldly wisdom. And this is how the Hebrew writer describes them. Others suffered mocking and flogging and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned. They were sawn in two. They were killed with the sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated. Of whom the world was not worthy, wandering about in deserts and mountains and in dens and caves of the earth. Hebrew writer doesn't talk about them being well known. Certainly, there were men that in the nation of Israel held a position of king. But even in that, they held the position of king over to the world, a fairly insignificant nation for most of history. And so when we think about our lives and how we are to apply them to either spiritual wisdom or earthly wisdom, we need to, first of all, understand that it's going to be a very different goal that we have in mind than the world does for our lives. We're going to be people of lowliness, and James says to his lowly brother or sister, Let the lowly one boast in his lowliness or in his ultimate, as we'll see, exaltation. But as we read what Hebrews says about those who follow Christ and so much of the rest of Scripture infers and tells us plainly. We have here the wisdom of the world coming into conflict with the wisdom of heaven and spiritual wisdom. The world tells you to go out and make something of yourself, doesn't it? That's what you're told seemingly from the time that you're small. Go out into the world and accomplish great things in the world. This is what the world tells us to do. To make something of yourself in the eyes of yourself and even others. We hear that again and again. And I think in some respects, the spiritual wisdom that we are to allow to govern our lives and submit our lives to is that is in contradiction to that and is at odds with that. We've heard it for so long that it seems wise to encourage people to go out into this world and make something of themselves here. Don't misunderstand me. I'm not saying that we ought not to apply ourselves to the work that God gives us to do, but we ought to do that in light of becoming spiritually wise people and not worldly prosperous ones. Not prosperous in this world alone. but spiritually minded people who see the difference between heavenly or spiritual wisdom and earthly wisdom. And when the world tells us to go out into the world and grab it and take as much of it as we can, we begin to recognize it for what it is, which is a false promise. And I think as I thought about this, I think the world likes the idea of humility. They give lip service many times, men and women, and we give lip service to the idea of humility, but often it does not translate to the reality of humility and lowliness. We want to be high and lifted up. That's what's in our carnal nature, it seems. James says that we are to boast. Let the lowly one boast in his exaltation. And we begin and understand that we do live lives and are to live lives in some ways that are lowly and humble. And though the world likes the idea of humility, I don't think it appreciates very much the reality of it. I dare say that the vast majority of what we see in the world in which we live today, we live in this world of social media. I believe that a lot of what you see out there paints a picture of things the way we want them to be, perhaps in the most positive light possible for others to see so that the world might think that we are prosperous. Maybe post things that we ourselves are proud of or post things that then we think the world would become proud of us about. It's become a very narcissistic culture that we live in. focused on exalting ourselves. But James says the one who's going to be exalted is the one who is lowly. He goes on and talks about the one who is exalted in his riches to exalt in his humiliation. We'll talk about that more in a moment. But the pictures that we so often paint in life are a picture that we want the world to see of us and our prosperity and our exaltation in their eyes, when the picture that really we ought to be painting with our life is a picture, of course, of Christ and not us. in our humility and lowliness, and is that not how He Himself demonstrated His love for the world, in that He came into the world and emptied Himself of the glory of being in heaven with His Father, emptied Himself of that rightful claim of not having to endure hardship and struggle and sorrow and brokenness and death, and yet He came here and He became a servant to all. He became the lowliest among us, it seems. which is almost hard to imagine and fathom to think that the Son of God could himself become a lowly human servant to others. But that's what he did. That's spiritual wisdom. Worldly wisdom has us exalt ourselves and show the world who we are. Spiritual wisdom shows us and we understand that we are lowly and ought to be humble and painting a picture ever and always of Christ. But it comes and it brings us to a question. How is it? How precisely? Why precisely is it that the lowly brother is to boast in his exaltation? How is that possible? How does this work? How does this verse work? It sounds odd. Much of what James says on the surface sounds odd in the ears of a of our own thinking at times, but certainly the ears of the world. Let the lowly brother boast in his exultation. How does that verse work? I think the answer is the fact that James calls this lowly one a brother, a brother in Christ, a believer in God and in the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the key to how those who are followers of Christ and who know him and desire to follow him in their life. This is the key to how they themselves can boast in their lowliness, in their ultimate exaltation. Romans 8 17 tells us that if we are children of God, then we are heirs and heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ. If we are fellow heirs with Christ. than the believer in Christ might be lowly here in this by the broken standards of the world. But in the eyes of God and in all of heaven, he is exalted above anything that the world ever knows. This exaltation that we are going to experience, this lifting up one day that we are going to experience as children of God opens up the ability for us as lowly, humble people in this world. boasting not merely in our lowliness and humbleness, but boasting in the exaltation that we anticipate one day receiving when Jesus returns and brings us back to himself and writes everything that is wrong and sets us up and we become human beings perfectly in the likeness of our creator. Now that image has been marred by sin. That's why we struggle with sin. That's why our thoughts, our actions, our attitudes, our behaviors, the things that inwardly as children of God and believers in Christ we desire to do, we don't do because of this sinful carnal flesh that continues to house us. But that day we're going to be exalted in ways that you can't right now truly begin to imagine. I think it was C.S. Lewis who said something about I won't be able to quote it, but he talked one time or wrote one time about how we would just be amazed and probably bow down and worship a human being that's been made righteous like we will one day. And of course, that worship would be wrong. Yet at the same time, what we will be one day as joint heirs with Christ is exalted to the highest place that a human being could ever be exalted to. I thought of this and I'll share it with you. There is no earthly king, no earthly king who has ever sat so high and so exalted than the lowliest child of God. One day, as they are exalted to the place of heaven with God, and it is the lowly believer who has a right to anticipate the blessing of this ultimate exaltation. The lowly, humble believer in Christ, James 4.10. He's going to tell us later, James, will humble yourselves before the Lord and he will exalt you. Psalm 138, verse 8, For though the Lord is high, he regards the lowly, but the haughty he knows from afar. Matthew 23.12. Jesus' words, whosoever exalts himself will be humbled and whosoever humbles himself will be exalted. The one who exalts himself has no claim to this promise that James has made no claim to boasting in the exaltation that is coming to those who are followers of Christ. And this, again, is at odds with worldly wisdom that we are bombarded with on a daily basis. James has instead here a warning. That one day, if you if you exalt yourself. If you live by the wisdom of the world, James says one day you will be humbled. So as we begin to unravel this verse and to understand how it works, what seems contradictory here that the lowly brother can boast in his exaltation, that that conflict that's there, that seeming paradox that's there. This is how it works. The brother, the believer in Christ, can boast in his certain exaltation. This is something that is coming. It isn't yet. Not here. One day we will be exalted to heights previously we never knew. And so that's what we ought to boast in. Not boasting about things here, we'll talk about that more in a moment, but boasting in that that we anticipate in Christ. First, John 3 to beloved. We are God's children now and what we will be has not yet appeared. But it will one day appear. And so as we live this in this world and we try to live our lives according to what James is encouraging us to live by, that we boast in our lowliness, it's this promise, by the way, that that allows us room for that boasting. We know, again, that one day we will be creatures so magnificent. So beautiful in the image and likeness of God without the mar of sin. What an incredible promise that we have been given in that that one day I will be in heaven, I'll no longer be marred by the sin that besets me here. And that's the exaltation that I anticipate. That's the exaltation that I desire to have in my life. Not the exaltation of the world or the pride of the world, but the anticipation of the exaltation that God one day is going to give me. Now, it's here, though, I think sometimes we can go wrong. with the idea of humility, and I want to put something of a buttress against where we can go when we begin to say and talk and even preach about humility. We can begin to think that humility is to think little of ourselves in the sense of beating ourselves up and calling ourselves worthless and having no self-esteem, as they say, or to look at ourselves as as as worthless things. And apart from God, that's true. That's why there's a struggle with it. That's why Satan is so effective with it at times. He makes us think that because of our sin, we are worthless things and we ought not to. We ought to think very little of ourselves. And I think we can go too far down that road and begin to miss the fact that yes, indeed, without God we are nothing, and we are worthless, and we will one day pay the penalty for our rejection of Him. But sometimes as we preach or teach or talk about humility, sometimes in our minds we turn that around to say, yes, I believe you, preacher. I agree with you. I am nothing. I am worthless. I am without any value. And I would say to you to hold on for just a moment on that, because though indeed it's somewhat true to say that without God we are worthless, Christ Jesus, the son of God, came into the world to bleed and to die to save you and to bring you to himself. He saw something not in us that was worthy, but something that in his mind, in his estimation, was worthy of his love. And again, I hesitate to mention this idea because it seems to me that for the vast majority of people today, we think far too much of ourselves. But for the child of God specifically, it's easy to miss the mark here and go too far on the other side. And I will quote C.S. Lewis here, he said, Humility is not thinking less of yourself. It's thinking of yourself less. And I think there is something to that. It's not thinking less of yourself, it's thinking of yourself less. As a healthy humility increases in our lives, it leads us not to think of ourselves merely as worthless or terrible or anything of the sort, even though these things, again, have a grain of truth in them. It leads us to think of ourselves less. I would say to you that if you are constantly thinking of how bad you are. How worthless you are, you are you're still a good distance, I think, from the kind of humility that you need, and I am well, I'm at the top of this list of people who don't seem to understand this the way I need to. But may James help us to see the difference here. May we boast, be joyful, be exalting, be anticipating. I'm one day going to be something so much better than I currently and presently am. I one day am going to be what I want to be fully, completely and without sin. And I'm going to exalt in that. I'm not going to think of myself as merely wasted effort, for I would dare not ever say that Jesus Christ wasted his effort on the cross. I will not stand at the foot of his cross and say, Lord, you saved me. But there's nothing about me that I see in me that's worthy of you. He's going to make us so. And it is in that that I exalt. So if you're constantly thinking how bad you are. How worthless you are. I want to, again, put something of a buttress up against that idea that Satan can then basically what he can do is as you get to the edge of the truth of the reality that without God, I am filthy rags. The Bible is clear. We cannot ignore it. There is none righteous. No, not. One, that means you and it means me. We put Christ, the son of God, the perfect, holy son of God on a cross and he died because we're sinners. And we get to the edge of that truth and we get there and we see it. And then we allow Satan at times to push us over the ledge and we leave the truth behind. And forget that Christ has bought us to shape us and make us so much more than we presently are. And we ought to exalt in that, James says. We ought to boast in that, not the boasting of the world. We'll talk about again in a moment, but the boasting that Christ is going to make me all that I desire to be. And just by the way, after all, Whether you are constantly thinking of yourself that you are the best thing since sliced bread or whether you're constantly thinking of yourself as the worst thing the world has ever seen, the fact remains you're thinking of yourself. And that's not humility. If anything, it's a false humility. Or an ignoring of humility. Humility is to think of ourselves less. Thoughts about God come first. You want to know how to make this real in your life? To think of yourself last, think of God first. That's a struggle here. Think of God first, and then think of others second, and then a distant third. It's not off the list, but a distant third is you. You have all you need if you know Christ. You have all you need if you know Christ. There's nothing else you need. And when you do have some temporary earthly need, you trust him with it. So I say to you and to me, we ought to think of ourselves less and think of Christ more. And as we do this, we can exalt in our lowliness, knowing that in Christ we will be exalted to that place of splendor, Our hearts now can only begin to comprehend and imagine and boast in that. Having trouble here in this world, you're not what you want to be. Boast in the exultation that's coming your way, lowly brother or lowly sister. Now, can we see in these promises what has been given to us and given to the lowly one, not to the proud or the rich in this world? The man or the woman lifted up in pride in this world. Now, does this mean that a Christian cannot be one who obtains a measure of success or prosperity or wealth in the world? I don't believe so. Because James has a word for the rich brother too. He has a word for the one who's found some success here on this side of eternity. Because as we read in Hebrews chapter 11, verses 36 through 38, that list of the lowly, the ones who lived their lives in sheepskins and in mountains and in dens and caves and were treated so poorly by the world, those lowly, humble people, we have them as the witness. And again, I do believe that seems to be the tendency or the majority of what it is to be a follower of Christ here. But there are examples of people who've met with success in this life. Does that mean that they have no opportunity? Does it mean then that a Christian is always one who in the eyes of the world is lowly and humble and all of these things? Certainly the answer to that is true. But I also believe that there is a word here. For the one who's found some success in this life, and I think I Know we might not agree. I know I don't even agree sometimes with this, but I think it's true. I Think most of us It's the second word that James speaks here It's the second thing he encourages us with that really we need to laser in on and that is if you're if you're wealthy in this world What is it that you should boast of? What should cause boasting in us, in a nation with so much prosperity? And I know we're throwing it out the window. I'm perfectly aware of that. I know what inflation is doing today. I filled my car up with gas yesterday. I know what's going on. But we, I'm sorry, I don't want to be insulting, but we don't have the first idea how prosperous we are. How much we have. What is it that we that have so much are to boast in? This is where worldly wisdom and spiritual wisdom are going to knock heads once again. They are not going to agree. Because what are we told that if we've if we've met with some success, what are we to boast in according to the world, that success? We're to boast in what people look at and see and think, wow, they've really made it. That's what the world tells the rich man to boast in. And I do think and there's there's debate among theologians of many past yesterday and many years ago and even presently today. There's some debate as to whether verse nine is talking about a believer and verse 10 is talking about an unbeliever because it refers to the rich. But I don't see it that way. I think we can supply the word brother in verse 10, just as it is in verse nine. Let the lowly brother boast in his exaltation and the rich brother in his humiliation. I think that the rest of what he says and he's going to talk about, by the way, those who have met success in chapter four, when he says, you know, don't boast about tomorrow, you that are that are successful in business. And he's who is he writing to brothers in the dispersion? Seems to me that he's talking to Christian people, believers in Christ. What does he say to the believer who has met with some success in the world? Well, He says to them, and the rich in his humiliation. That's what you ought to boast in. If you've met with some success, humiliation, being humbled. James says it here as plain as he can say it, that the rich should boast in their humiliation. And he again seems to me to be addressing a brother, a believer. He said what the lowly brother ought to boast in, and now he tells the rich brother what he ought to boast in. But both men, I think, are believers, followers of God. And what is he to boast in? His humiliation. That word humiliation in the Greek, it means this. It is the quality of unpretentious behavior. Suggesting, and listen to this, a total lack of arrogance or pride. That's what the rich brother ought to boast in. His humiliation. We've come so far in our day from respecting an unpretentious lifestyle. That this is a little foreign to us. I don't think it was really even just a generation or two ago. But it is today. We're told today not only are we to go out and and get all the success in the world that we can, once we get it, we are encouraged to flaunt it. And come so far in our day of disrespecting a humble lifestyle, even amidst and perhaps most especially in the lives of those who don't have to live that way, I think we've come so far that a great deal of the financial difficulty that's faced by a great deal of people today as the result of attempting to pay for a lifestyle they can't afford, to boast in it. And what's even worse about that is they're boasting in what's not real. It's not even real, but they're boasting in it. If you'll give me just 60 seconds on my soapbox, I'll say a couple of things. Our national debt is a train wreck. that has run so far off the track that it seems impossible it will ever be paid. It's $30 trillion. $30 trillion. It's not going to get paid back. But more than that, the average credit card debt in the US today is a little over $6,000. That may not sound like much, $6,000, but when you consider the fact that the average interest rate on a credit card today is 16.58%, people are paying a little over $1,000 a month just on interest. Now, sometimes that's the result of some very difficult circumstances in life. And so don't hear me say, judgmentally, that that's a horrible thing. Sometimes it's the only option some people have. But I think by and large, it's because we want things we can't afford. And we want to boast in that. We want to show off rather than live unpretentiously. We want to show the world our success because after all, that's what we think the world expects. And that's not what James is talking about here, that's not spiritual wisdom. The unpretentious lifestyle is one that much the world looks down on. Sees it and ridicules it. Tell you another little story that some of you older generation, you may know Sam Walton built the most incredible personal wealth the world had ever seen, drove around till the day he couldn't drive anymore in an old F-150 pickup truck. He was asked one time, why do you drive that truck? And I love his quote that I found. He said, I just don't believe a big showy lifestyle is appropriate. Why do I drive a pickup truck? What am I supposed to haul my dogs around in, a Rolls Royce? And he was an example, I don't know anything else about the man, but I think that speaks of something in a way of a of a wiser mindset than has settled over most of the world today. And James is talking about what are we if we've been blessed with much to boast in? Our humiliation. Now, let's bring this back to our passage and we'll we'll hurry along here today, I'm I'm not concerned. about merely encouraging you to toward a financially conservative approach to life, though I do encourage that. That's not my interest necessarily here today. I am. I'm more interested in encouraging you from what James, I think, says toward a spiritually minded view of life that reminds you, even if you are rich and you have much. that it's not in your riches that you should boast. It's not in your plenty that you should boast, not in the plentifulness of the world. Instead, you should boast in your humiliation, an attitude of humility, of being brought back down to a recognition of who you are. And what's interesting, do you see what happens? As you're brought back down to a lowly place here in the world, it allows you clearly to see what you're to boast in, which is your exaltation in the future. So it doesn't leave you without boasting. It leaves you boasting in the right thing. It doesn't leave you broken. It doesn't leave you in despair. Christian life is not supposed to be one that is just one terrible day after another. It is supposed to be seasoned, I think, throughout with the boasting of the exaltation that is coming. I think one of the worst things and I think this is true, you can take it or leave it, but I do want you to think about it. I think one of the worst things that can happen to the rich in particular is to never be humbled. I think it's one of the worst things that can happen, and I think one of the worst things that can happen for any of us is to never be humbled. But a rich person in particular does not does not live life with that, that knowledge that that they need to be humbled. They don't live life with the knowledge that he will or she will one day pass away. He thinks he has all that he needs when he actually has nothing of any lasting value. And again, yet being humbled seems to be the very thing that a rich person fears the most when it ought to be the very thing in which they're boasting. Process of being humbled can be a painful experience, but when it is fully considered, it it will be it can be a blessing from God. But we ask, why are things this way? Why shouldn't a rich man boast in his riches? What's wrong with that? I mean, that's how we think today. What's wrong with that? These are the questions that more and more people, I think, today are asking. It's expected that people show off their success in the world, and many reject the Christian idea of being unpretentious. Well, verse 11 gives us the answer, and it's where we will turn towards our close today. Why ought the rich to boast in their humiliation? Because the sun rises with its scorching heat and withers the grass, its flower falls, and its beauty perishes. So also will the rich man fade away in the midst of his pursuits. There is nothing, I don't think, and that's a strong statement to make. I know when you say those words, there is nothing, but there seems to me to be nothing that will protect you more from pride and being exalted in the things of this life. Nothing will protect you more from that pride and the desire for great possessions in this world than being reminded of the brevity of life and the inevitability of its end. Very few things will protect you more from that boasting in this world than being reminded of that, its brevity, its tenuousness, Even the riches that we gain, how quickly they can be taken from us. James here draws on nature for an illustration of life here on Earth and how how we are to think spiritually and not in a worldly way. It's early here now and in in May, it's early in the growing season. I don't I don't know about you. I'm having to mow my yard every four or five days just to stay in front of it. It seems that morning after I mow, I can go out there and it's already grown taller. I think sometimes I can literally go out there and if I spend a couple of hours, I can probably literally watch it grow and mow it. And it's next day, next few days, it needs to be mowed again. But that's that's not going to last. That's not going to last very long. Even in even here, eventually. We can anticipate this. The summer is going to go deeper. The sun is going to burn more hot. And even in some translations, by the way, it's not just scorching heat. It's the idea of scorching heat and wind. I think the NASV and the ASV, I think, use that word wind instead of heat. And it's all in the same sense here. It's the scorching heat. And basically the whole idea, again, is sun's going to come up and this grass and this lushness that we see, it's going to scorch it. And that flower of the field is going to fall. I was sitting out Friday after work with Sarah on our back porch, and she had some flowers on a table, and they'd been really pretty and vibrant in color and standing tall. One day, it seems like Friday afternoon, they just started to wilt, and the heat just really got to them. Maybe, perhaps they'll rebound. I don't know. Get some water, cooler temperatures. But the reality is, ultimately, they will fall. You know, it's remarkable to me how we miss this truth, though, in our life. It's remarkable to me. I've mentioned it before. We seem to think, well, we'll go on and on and on. And we would never argue this point intellectually. We know that it's true. We know it's true, yet we live as though it isn't. I don't get it. I don't get it about myself. There's only a certain number of days that makes them valuable. I don't know how many there are. There may be a thousand, there may be one. I don't know. I know that. Yet I live as though I don't. It is in remembering this, the brevity of this life, that the rich man boasts in his humiliation. He remembers it. It is this reminder that prevents him from placing his trust in his riches. He knows that one day he himself will fade away. This life, his life here will pass away. He's going to let go of the things that he sometimes thought to boast about. He looks at his earthly wealth for what it is. It's a passing thing, the spiritually minded, rich person, wealthy person. This is how he looks at his riches. These are passing things. Sorry to quote him so many times, but I've been reading some of his writings lately. C.S. Lewis said something about, don't ever place your hope in things you can lose. Well, that makes a whole lot of sense. The rich man that is a follower of God doesn't place his trust there. He knows he can lose it. And looking at his wealth and his prosperity, and as we here in the United States of America in 2022 and prosperity, we have enjoyed from the work, by the way, of previous generations as much or more than ours. As we look at that wealth and that prosperity, we recognize it's a passing thing, and you and I may be being benefited a little bit here as we see it begin to pass away. But it reminds us that it's a passing thing, and in looking at his wealth, this rich believer, he's able to boast in being reminded of his lowly station in the world, and then he can exalt in his exaltation. He can boast in that exaltation. Now notice, as we close, it's said of the rich man that he will fade away in the midst of his pursuits. That's a powerful phrase. Just as he is living as he always lived, just as he boasts in riches that he will one day leave, and while seeking riches he may one day never gain, he's going to fade away. Thus has every rich man who has ever walked the earth. And thus will every rich man who will walk the earth. Thus will you and I. What a different thing, heavenly wisdom is from earthly wisdom, isn't it? Which is better? Which makes more sense, even? Which is that that you can trust? I ask you today to cling to heavenly wisdom and reject the earthly wisdom to hear and to heed James' words. I want you to take this away, if you will. Heavenly wisdom promises nothing that it does not ultimately deliver, while earthly wisdom ultimately delivers nothing that it promises. In what are you boasting? What brings you joy and peace What settles and calms your heart? Something in this world? Or the exaltation as a humble child of God you anticipate? Maybe you hesitate at all. at this call of God, you might be wrestling with giving yourself to him in the first place in salvation, or perhaps you're you're his, but you've been living for yourself of late and listening to the wisdom of the world. Maybe you're boasting in the world's riches, maybe you've been prosperous. And you found some comfort there. Or or perhaps you're going about seeking the world's riches rather than the heavenly riches, fitting and befitting a child of God. If this is you, and I remind you of the previous verses, to ask God for wisdom. If you're not seeing it, then with you, may we all ask, may I ask God for this wisdom. And remember when we talked, and I am closing, we talked about knowledge, understanding, and wisdom, and how they're different last week. Our time is limited. That's a fact. That's knowledge. We have that. Check. We know that, don't we? Nobody's gonna argue that. It's a fact. We have a limited amount of time. That moves to understanding when we realize that our own time, my time, my time is gonna run out. Even if we don't know when that will be, we know it and we understand what that means. We not only know it, but we understand it, that all of a sudden now, well, then I must find out the reason and the purpose for my time. That's wisdom, or excuse me, that's knowledge and understanding. But now we must apply wisdom to those two things. Because my time here is limited, And the earthly riches of this world are passing away. I will not boast in myself or the world. I will not spend the precious few days of my life here, wasting it on the things that will not last. I refuse to spend more time hoping in the vain and empty promises of the world. Well, if we could get there, it's easy to write. It's easy to say. It's different to live it. 1 Timothy 4, 7 and 8 have nothing to do with the irreverent silly myths. Rather, train yourself for godliness. There is no more irreverent or silly myth in the world than that one that tells you that the world can fill the void in the human heart. There's no more silly or irrelevant or irreverent myth than that. So train yourself to be wise with spiritual wisdom. and boast in the things that God encourages us to boast in in our life, and reject the things that we're not to boast in. I pray something's been said of him. If we could have some at this time.